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Microsoft's Xamarin Acquisition; thoughts? wishlists?

According to CRN [1], Microsoft is in talks to acquire Xamarin. I'm interested in knowing what Xamarin community thinks of it (even if it is just a rumor). Good? Bad? Also, what are your wishlists if Microsoft really acquires Xamarin?

I wish people wouldn't speculate too much and blow up rumors. I think a coop between Xamarin and MS is healthy, but I am not sure about MS buying Xamarin would do much good. Xamarin being their own company gives them some flexibility that might not be possible when under MS's wings.

Seriously, who's really surprised by this. I've been concerned about it for months. On the one hand it would legitimise Xamarin in the eyes of enterprises and make it a valid alternative to native. On the other it would be the beginning of the end for Xamarin. Apple would never allow it to continue if Microsoft was the owner.

"Xamarin being their own company gives them some flexibility that might not be possible when under MS's wings" - Really?
Well, I think that this is the strongest argument for their unification.

With Microsoft starting to focus on Internet Services and an equal distribution of their tools to every platform (e.g. Mac OneNote, Mac/iPad Office) i'd love to see Microsoft providing a CLI that targets multiple platforms. And as every app written with Xamarin also helps the ecosystem around the Windows Runtime this could be big win.

In the end I think that this is exactly what Miguel de Icaza wanted when he founded Mono...

One will see how much truth these rumors incorporate but I'm pretty excited about the slowly changig strategy Microsoft follows.

I agree that there are certainly synergies between the two organizations. I also agree with Cheese and Gavin that there is utility for Xamarin in being an independent organization. The strong relationship required to do things like a day one iOS 7 release takes a lot of trust and a deep strategic relationship. I'm not sure that MS currently enjoys that with Apple.

Having said that, MS doing a substantial investment in Xamarin would be very good. It will help give more legitimacy to Xamarin. If such an investment would enable Xamarin to change their price structure then that would be an additional win. I'm hearing increased buzz around Xamarin in the different shows I've been speaking at and currently one of their largest barriers to adoption is their price structure.

Either outcome would be good. For example acquisition by MS could lead to further VS integration and a good price point or as part of VS/MSDN. Currently I'm leaning towards hoping for a substantial investment.

I think this is a good move for Microsoft and developers. In my opinion, Microsoft has some of the best developer support/tools in the industry. I hope they can take Xamarin to the next level so more developers can adopt it. I also hope that if this acquisition goes through it helps reduce the costs for getting a Xamarin license. Who knows, maybe they will start giving it away for free provided you release your app on their store.

I've been following Mono/Xamarin for years and they've produced some incredibly technology. I've gone from no iOS experience at all to being on the verge of getting an App in the store in 3 weeks thanks mainly to Xamarin. Still loads to learn, but I wouldn't have made anywhere near the progress I have if I'd have been restricted to Objective C.

I agree that either option from MS would be good. Part of me does worry that if MS buy Xamarin out, key people in the company would leave. Hopefully that won't happen, and the biggest pain point for Xamarin adoption, IMHO cost, will be substantially removed.

I'm sure this would be a good thing. Microsoft's quality bar for developer tools is much higher than what the Xamarin team has produced thus far. It might take a while before we see improvements though.

If they were to buy Xamarin, refund all app developers the cost of Xamarin as long as they would publish all their iOS or Android apps also on WP8. Developers = free license. Microsoft = more WP8 apps. Win-Win.

@SKall Yeah, that would be a cunning plan actually, although I wonder if the logistics of organising refunds would make it too costly to bother with. Only a few days to go now until build. Excitement building

being able to write Win8 Appstore apps and WindowsPhone apps with Xamarin Studio on MacOs would be great.
Maybe like iOS under Windows where you need a Mac hidden in some corner, just the other way arround.

I like WindowsPhone, but my development plattform is Xamarin for Mac. And being forced to use a classic Windows Desktop system to develop for WindowsPhone (or Windows AppStore app) is just too much hazzle to bother...

Xamarin documentation is fragmented and often leads you down the wrong path. There is no concise structured way to go from one end to the other. Not enough UI libraries. If you need to have something up and running quickly with much lesser resistance, go with Ionic or PhoneGap.

You spend a lot of time and effort learning this platform and then MS is free to do what it did with Silverlight. Why would you want to invest so much time in such a platform anyway?